Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1887-06-25
mother. was that lie, or what did you
mean by saying ftY'

ut was no lie, baas, said the Hottentot,
excitedly. II have said it once, and will
say it again. Listen, baae, and will tell you
the story. When was young, SO Highland
he held his hand high enough to indicate q
tottie OF about IA years Of age-@we, that is,
my father, my mother, my uncle, very old
man, older than the baas (pointing to Slas
Croft, "were bijwoners authorized squat
ters) on place belonging to old Jacob Muller,
Baas Franks father, down In Lydenburg
yonder. 1t was a bush veldt farm, and old
Jacob used to come down there with his cattle
from the High veldt in the winter when there
was no grass in the High vellt, and with him
came the Englishwoman, his wife, and the
young Baas Frank-the baas we saw yester-
day.
aHow long ago was all thisf" asked Mr..
Croft
Jantje counted ON his fingers for some sec
onds, and then held up his hand and opened
1t four times in succession. $780," he said,
Htwenty years last winter Baas Frank was
young then; he had only little down upon
bis chin. One year, when ON Jacob went
away, after the first rains. he left six oxen
that were too poor tthin) to go with my faith
er, and told him to look after them as though
they were his children. But the oxen were
bewitched. Three of them took the lungsick
and died, lion got one, a snake killed one,
and one ate tulip and died TOO. So when
ON Jacob came back the next year all the
oxen were gone He was very angry with
my father, and beat him with yoke strap
till he was all blood, and, though we showed
him the bones of the oxen, he said that we
had stolen them and sold them.
"Now, ON Jacob had q beautiful span Of
black oxen that he loved like children Six
80
come up to the yoke when he called them and
put down their heads of themselves They
were tame as dogs. These oxen were Thin
when they came down, but in two months
they got fat and began to want to trek about
as oxen do. At this time there was Basutu,
one Of Sequati's people, resting in our hut,
for he had hurt his foot with thorn. When
ON Jacob found that the Basutu was there
he was very angry, for he said that all Basu-
tus were thieves. 80 my father told the
Basttu that the baas said that he must 60
away, and be went that night. Next morn
ing the span Of black oxen were gone too.
The kraal gate was down and they had gone.
We hunted all day, but we could not find
them. Then ON Jacob got mad with rage,
and the young Baas Frank told him that
one of the Kaffir boys had said to him that
he had heard my father sell them to the Ba-
sutu for sheep which he was to pay to us in
the summer. 1t was lie, but Baas Frank
hated my father because of something about
q woman-a Zulu girl Next morning, when
VIC were asleep, just at daybreak, Om Jacob
Muller and Baas Frank and two Kaffirs
came into the hut and pulled us out, the old
man, my uncle, my father, my mother and
myself, and tied us up to four mimosa trees,
with buffalo reims Then the Kaffirs went
away, and ON Jacob asked my father where
the cattle were, and my father told him that
he did not know. Then he took off his hat
and said q prayer to the Big Man in the sky,
and when he had done Baas Frank came up
with a gun, and stood quite close and shot
my father dead, and he fell forward and
hung quite over the REIN, his head touching
his feet Then he loaded the gun again and
shot the old man, my uncle and he slipped
down dead, and his hands stuck up in the air
against the REIN. Next he shot my mother,
but the bullet did not kill her, and cut the
reim, and she ran away, and he ran after
her and killed her. When that was done he
came back to shoot me; but / was young
then and did not know that it Is better to be
dead than to live like dog, and / begged
and prayed for mercy while he was loading
the gun.
"But the baas only laughed, and said he
would teach Hottentots how to steal cattle,
and old ON Jacob prayed out loud to the Big
Man and said he was very sorry for me, but
1t was the dear Lords will And then, just
as Baas Frank lifted the gun he dropped 1t
again, for there, coming softly, softly over
the brow Of the hill, in and out between the
bushes, were all the sixteen oxen. They had
got out In the night and strayed away into
some kloof for q change of pasture, and
come back when they were full and tired of
being alone Om Jacob turned quite white
and scratched his head, and then fell upon
his knees and thanked the dear Lord for sav-
ing my life; and Just then the English
woman, Baas Franks mother, came down
t'om the wagon to see what the firing was
at, and when she saw all the people dead and
me weeping, tied to the tree, and learned
what II was about, she went quite mad, for
sometimes she had kind heart when she was
not drunk, and said that curse would fall
on them, and that they would all die in blood
And she took q knife and cut me loose,
though Baas Frank wanted to kill me, so that
might tell no tales; and ran away, travel
ing by night and hiding by day, for was
very much frightened. till got to Natal and
there stopped, working in Natal till the
land became English, when Baas Croft hired
me to drive his cart up from Maritzburg;
and living by here found Baas Frank, look
Ing bigger but Just the same except for his
beard.
"There, baas, that Is the truth, and all the
truth, and that II why I hate Baas Frank,
because he shot my father and mother, and
why Baas Frank hates me, because he cannot
forget that he did 1t and saw him do II, for,
as our people say, 'one always hates q man
one has wounded with q spear" and having
finished his narrative, the miserable looking
little man picked up his greasy old felt hat,
that had leather strap fixed round the
crown, In which were stuck a couple Of frayed
ostrich feathers and jammed it down over
his ears, and then fell to drawing circles on
the soil with his long toes. His auditors only
looked at one another. Such a CHASTITY tale
seemed to be beyond comment They never
doubted its truth; the mans way of telling it
carried conviction with it And, indeed, two
of them az any rate, had heard such stories
before. Most people have who live in the